I was greeted by the scent of coffee in my tiny apartment, a pleasant change from the sterile one of the hospital room I’d just exited.
I was attracted to these tales, to the naked strength of the human body.
Sarah, my newest interviewee for my blog, “Matters with Matt,” had looked at death in a way I admired.
A brain tumour, they said.
Inoperable.
But she was there, beaming power and laughter.
Hers, like many others, moved me. It was as if, by rediscovering from their lost strands of life, I could reconstruct my own.
I’d grown up between a father of violence and a mother of unspeakable misery who gave me a vivid sense of suffering, the desire to mend.
But eventually, empathy turned into hyper-engagement. I dived into each narrative, each encounter, to comfort, to mend.
Tiredness, however, also had a way of spilling secrets I’d kept from anyone, including me.
The nights I couldn’t sleep, the shivering that ran through my bones spoke of my own unmet needs, my own splintered edges.
At what point did my urge to enclose become incapable of separation? But at what point did care become a lifeline, an insurance policy against my demons?
The realisation arrived slowly, like sunlight over a foggy horizon. It started with knowing the boundaries of my power.
I couldn’t take away Sarah’s suffering, and I couldn’t shield her from the reality of her diagnosis.
The only thing I could bring was love, an ear, a place to be.
This newfound knowledge did not stop with my work with interviewees such as Sarah.
It roiled my friends, my employment, my identity. I started establishing limits, demanding what I needed, no longer labeling self-love selfish.
The shame that was still hanging tight like a veil disappeared.
It wasn’t about turning away or staying silent.
It was an acknowledgment of the resilience that I loved so much in other people, by accepting mine.
It was to realise that what really connected us was not fixing, but embracing, embracing the common humanity we all had, flaws and all.
And while I was writing, I started.
It wasn’t just Sarah’s, or the thousands I’d chronicled.
It was my tale, too — the courage to embrace the need for connection as well as the courage to hold up the walls that will allow us to see, and be seen.
The rescuer identity doesn't seem like a healthy one. Sort of disempowering.
Thanks for posting, Matt.